Let’s call it #TurkeyVultureTuesday!
When I share images of these fantastic birds, they don’t get too much attention. I get it. They are kinda ugly but the fact is, they are way cool. I think I have a bit of a bizarre fascination with them as I get excited when I get to photograph them.
On one morning last week I let my beautiful bride sleep in and I headed off from camp solo to see what I could find. It wasn’t going so well when I came across a couple of fantastic turkey vultures. They were battling over a roost on a utility pole and as one chased the other off, the evicted vulture would give me some nice flybys.
This image I love as one flew by a cloud-spotted part of the sky. After I was done photographing them, I returned to camp and as my wife and I sat outside drinking coffee, we watched a kettle of 16 of them circling an area to our west.
Turkey vultures can soar as well as any large bird and, perhaps most importantly, they perform a vital role as nature’s garbage collectors. They feed on carrion they find lying around dead like rabbits, prairie dogs and such and are believed to be able to smell the dead animals up to a mile away. In cleaning up the dead, they help to prevent the spread of disease from the carcasses.
